


the silence sent a scream into the cold (i wait, i wait)

by elsinorerose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Background Mighty Nein - Freeform, Death, F/M, Pain, Pining, Referenced Suicide Attempt, Sadness, a few more surprises later on, content warning for blood and emetophobia, ghosts and ghost-related things, just so much of all of the above, more tags to be added later, references to torture and abuse, spoilers for campaign 1, the afterlife
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-02-27 09:11:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18736012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsinorerose/pseuds/elsinorerose
Summary: A ghost in love, trapped on this side of the afterlife by words unspoken — it's nothing original, Caleb knows how these stories go. He has to find a way to speak to her, to make Jester hear him, and when he's told her what he should have told her a long time ago, he'll find himself free, able to seek rest, to seek peace.This is how it's supposed to work, anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy, here we go, gang. Please note that in later chapters there will be **spoilers** for Campaign One, so if you care about that sort of thing, this may be a fic to save until you're caught up. There's also gonna be some content in later chapters that might be triggering/squicky for some folks -- I've mentioned it already in the fic tags, but just reiterating it here for anyone who would be uncomfortable reading that stuff.
> 
> Thanks to LadyOfPurple, Bonesout, Shaypotter, and smokeandjollyranchers, my glorious beta-readers, for looking over this for me. (Okay, so I _really like getting stuff beta'ed,_ sue me.) This is the first time I've ever posted the first chapter of a WIP, so _here's hoping I don't realize in a week's time that I should have gone back and changed something in chapter one oh god!!!_
> 
> Title from "Rolling Over" by Low Roar.

1

He's too late.

The air is thick with shadows and fog and screams, and Caleb is half-blinded, half-deafened, half-distracted by the sounds of his friends in pain, and by his  _ own  _ pain — he hasn't even had a chance to look down at himself but he knows he's covered in blood and burns, and that  _ might  _ be the bottom of his ribcage sticking out of his skin, but there's no time to think about that — there is a lich to kill, and they are  _ nearly  _ there, it's so close, they are on the  _ edge  _ of victory, and maybe that is what really throws him off, the pounding of his heart not just from adrenaline and blood loss and terror but from the knowledge that they could  _ actually win. _

And then he sees the lich point a finger, a stone and a handful of dust in her skeletal grasp, and speak a word.

Caleb can't see who she's pointing at. It isn't him. But it's one of his friends — his  _ family,  _ and so it doesn't matter which one of them it is. Any choice he had has just been removed from the equation.

He has nothing left that can stop it. So he  _ runs. _

_ Too late —  _ the thought pounds in time with his heart —  _ too late, too late,  _ and it's like slow motion, like dunamis, the line of green light is leaving the outstretched tip of the lich's finger and Caleb is  _ too far away — _

Something stabs through his shoulder, through his chest, at a strange angle that pierces his heart and exits the other side just below his armpit, and it's like ice and iron and acid and flame and everything goes — hazy. Everything  _ pauses.  _ Everything  _ drifts. _

Caleb isn't sure why. It takes him a few moments to realize that it's because he can't hear anything anymore. All the sound in the world has been cut away.

He glances down at himself, and he's nothing but dust.

It worked.  _ Scheisse,  _ it worked, it actually worked, he made it — something like a hysterical laugh is bubbling up inside of him, and he has to clamp his hands over his mouth to keep it in — he ran fast enough, he got there in time, he took the spell, snatched it right out of that  _ gotverdammt  _ lich's bony fucking hand, and he saved — who did he save?

Giddy, on the verge of tears, Caleb looks to his left. 

Jester.  _ Oh,  _ says his frantic heart that is just now beginning to slow, oh, thank goodness, thank everything. Thank god he made it. Thank god he ran.

_ She'll blame herself  _ is his next thought.  _ She'll blame herself, because you just died for her. _

Caleb holds his hands up to his face. They're barely visible. The faintest outline of light distinguishes his wrists and palms and fingers from the rest of the grey field around him, from the smoke and broken rocks and smears of blood in the dirt. He takes a step, two steps, three, and he can't feel the earth beneath his feet. He can't feel the wind on his face. He can't feel the gashes carved into his stomach and sides.

He's dead. Of course he can't.

In front of him, Caleb watches as Fjord — grey and faded like the rest of the world — flings a gout of swirling eldritch energy at the lich's form, screaming something that Caleb can't hear, and moments later there is a blinding flash of white light from Caduceus's staff, and that's all it takes. They were  _ so  _ close, after all. Hit from both sides by this final assault, the robed, skeletal figure shudders, gives a silent shriek into the sky, and is unceremoniously ripped apart.

It's over. All over. Caleb drops to his knees, numb, shaking, even without a body, half a dozen whispered prayers on his nonexistent lips, though he doesn't know who he's praying to or even what he's saying. Relief, it's just relief. Relief that the others are alive. Relief that this corner of the world, for a little while longer, is still safe. Relief that it's over.

Relief that lasts a few seconds, before Fjord turns and looks in his direction, and the reality of the situation finally hits Caleb, like a wall of nausea slamming into his chest and knocking the breath out of him.

Nothing is over. This has only just begun.

2

They are standing around the place where Caleb's body was, where nothing remains but a heap of dust, an amulet, two small stones, his glove of blasting, and one — no, two books. His spellbook, and his journal.

The journal shouldn't be there, thinks Caleb vaguely — everything nonmagical on his person should have been disintegrated with that spell, and there was nothing in his journal besides thoughts and secrets. It doesn't make sense.

Very little about this makes sense, though, to be fair. Because Caleb is dead. He shouldn't be here at  _ all.  _ Yet here he is, watching his small, ragged family gathered on the battlefield to mourn.

It's hard to make out their faces. It's like he's looking at them underwater, or through a heat wave making the air shimmer. Everything is colorless and mute and hard to pin down.

But he can see that Nott is weeping, and that Fjord's face is twisted with pain, and that Beauregard has her jaw and fists clenched in fury. He can see the heavy concern lining Caduceus's brow, and the darkness in Yasha's eyes.

He can see the tears trailing down Jester's cheeks, one after another, that haven't stopped since the moment she understood what had just happened.

It had taken them all a few moments. None of them, Caleb realized, had actually seen him die — even Jester had been turned away, her attention on the wraith she was trying to bring down with her spiritual weapon. Fjord had been the first one to follow the line of the lich's finger, to frown at the pile of ash and trinkets he saw there, but it wasn't until they were all regrouping in the wake of the lich's destruction — until someone must have spoken up, "Wait, where's Caleb?" — that it must have occurred to him what he'd been looking at.

His face had crumpled. Jester had clapped both hands over her mouth. Beauregard had cursed, loudly — Caleb didn't need to hear her to know what she'd shouted.

Nott had run forward, fallen to her knees, and started clawing at the dust, like if she dug deep enough she would find Caleb underneath, alive and whole.

That's the sight, out of all of them — Nott digging frenetically at the dirt and ash, her small claws scrabbling against the rocky, hard-packed earth as she finds nothing else there, as she keeps going, digging until her fingers bleed — that's the sight that will stay with him, Caleb thinks, for the rest of his life.

Except that he's dead. 

His head hurts.

They are standing around the place where his body was, and yet Caleb still has a body, even if it's intangible and invisible and not real, and it  _ doesn't make sense,  _ because you don't...linger, when you die. You  _ pass on.  _ He knows this, not only because he's heard it enough times from Jester and Caduceus and other priests and clerics they've met throughout their journeys, but because they have watched it happen before. They have put ghosts to rest, killed wraiths, destroyed the undead. They just ended the unlife of a lich queen. These things are wrong and must be set to right  _ because  _ they are unnatural, because that's not how it's supposed to work, because the laws of gods and nature say that the soul cannot stay on the mortal plane without the body. It is only by perverting the course of fate that anyone can bind a spirit to this life longer than it was meant to be here. 

Caleb hopes, rather desperately, that this is just a sort of...hiatus, an interlude between this world and the next.  Maybe it is like this for everyone. After all, he's never been dead before, how would he know? Maybe everyone has a brief respite, while their image or impression slowly fades from this life, until at last they're truly gone, and then they wake up where they're supposed to be.

Or they never wake up. Maybe all the gods and heavens and hells are all bullshit.

It's hard to believe that, though, Caleb thinks, as he watches Caduceus walk from person to person, placing tired hands on their shoulders and healing them with the little bit of the Wildmother's blessing he has left after the fight — as he watches Jester, lips trembling, placing a diamond in the center of the heap of ash before her and trying to cast  _ revivify,  _ even though she knows it won't work, even though she must hear her Traveler's gentle sigh of regret in her ear. It's hard to say that the Stormlord doesn't exist when he has seen the power bestowed on Yasha, or that the Archeart is just a myth when he has felt their bright touch freeing his own mind from darkness.

It's hard to think it's all just bullshit. But Caleb can't rule anything out at this point. Because  _ none of this makes sense. _

Beauregard kneels and, with hands that are torn and bloodied from hours of punching bone and scales and skulls, takes Jester's hands off of the diamond so tenderly. Caleb's heart gives a painful stutter. She is murmuring something, and he can imagine her words even if he can't quite read her lips.  _ He's gone, Jessie. Save your strength. We'll need it later. He's gone. _

_ I'm right here,  _ he wants to say. He wants to bend down and yell it into her face, to seize her by the shoulders and shake as hard as he can, but he knows better. He has read enough stories. None of them will be able to hear him, and his touch will pass through their bodies like nothing but air. 

That's all right, though, because he won't be here for much longer. He can't be. He'll blow away like a mist, he  _ has  _ to, it can't be long now, and then they will be able to bring him back. It will take time, and it will be expensive, but they will pay the price, they will buy the diamonds, they will learn the spell, and they will bring him back.

If Caleb is right. If this is just how it is for everyone, and he just has to be patient.

If he is not still here because of something worse.

3

His hearing slowly starts to return after three days.

It's the latest in a trend that is beginning to scare him. First his vision began to clear, to focus, to sharpen; after the first day Caleb could see perfectly again, as if nothing had gone wrong. Then it was touch. He still can't feel things the way he used to, can't make out details or textures or changes in temperature, and he can't affect anything around him, of course — but he can feel his feet on the ground. He can tell when there's a strong wind, and if it's raining he can sense the drops hitting his face before they pass through him to land on the ground.

And now he can make out the sounds of his friends' voices, even some of their words, and it's getting better every hour. Before long, Caleb thinks, he'll be able to eavesdrop on their conversations as easily as if he'd simply cast  _ invisibility  _ on himself.

He is not fading away. He is fading  _ closer. _

"...else to do," comes Jester's voice, muffled and distorted, like he's hearing her through thick layers of cotton wool. "...don't have...like we...soon...it's  _ Caleb." _

Fjord presses his fingers up to his temples, rubbing at a headache or mounting frustration, and when he replies Caleb can't make out any of what he says. It's harder with Fjord. Nott is easy, Caleb can hear her almost like normal, and Jester is getting easier, and Beauregard too. But Fjord and Caduceus are still barely audible, and what little Caleb gets from them is too faint to parse into words. 

(He has no idea whether or not he can understand Yasha, because she hasn't spoken in three days. Not around Caleb, anyway.)

Whatever Fjord says, Jester doesn't like it. She stares straight ahead, her jaw working as she tries to hold back tears, and her whole body is tense and angry, the tip of her tail lashing back and forth uncontrollably. 

It reminds Caleb of Frumpkin. Two sudden, sharp, twin pangs of affection and loneliness shoot through Caleb's gut. He hasn't seen his familiar in days — may never see him again, if he never comes back from this. And Frumpkin will never know why. The last thing he will have seen was Caleb snapping his fingers and sending him back to the Feywild as they were all preparing for battle.  _ Just for a while,  _ Caleb had promised, and Frumpkin had trilled in assent.

He's never been separated from his cat for this long. Not in five years. He imagines Frumpkin pacing to and fro somewhere in the Feywild, like he has seen him do in front of a window before, watching birds or fallen leaves picked up by the wind; only now he's watching for Caleb, waiting for that little spark of arcane impulse to summon him back to his master's side.

It won't come. And Frumpkin is clever. He'll have worked it out by now, that Caleb fell, that his friends haven't been able to raise him up again.

_ I'm sorry,  _ thinks Caleb helplessly.  _ Forget me. Go play. Go hunt. Go find someone new to serve. _

Jester slams a fist onto the table in front of her, and Caleb's attention is jolted back into place. He actually feels the vibration of it ripple through him somehow. It makes him catch his breath, or it would, if he had any breath to catch.

"...isn't  _ fair,  _ we...anything for us, you  _ know —  _ and...for me!"

Caleb moves forward without thinking, puts a hand on Jester's shoulder, but it falls through her, insubstantial as light. He wants to punch a wall, to claw at his own face, to scream — he can't  _ comfort  _ her, he just has to stand there and watch as she shouts at Fjord, the tears she's been holding back finally overflowing, and he can't  _ help.  _ He can't even leave. 

He can't leave Jester's side, and he doesn't know why.

She's still shouting, but Fjord's expression has changed, has filled with pity, and he steps up to Jester's side, actually steps  _ through  _ Caleb, and wraps an arm around her shoulders in a one-sided hug. Caleb staggers backwards, waves of nausea flooding him until he's out of Fjord's space, and even then he feels unmistakably  _ cold  _ for a few moments afterward. It startles him more than just physically. Isn't it supposed to be the people with actual bodies who feel sick when this happens?

But Fjord shows no signs of being aware he's just walked through a ghost. He's pressing a kiss to the top of Jester's head as she slumps against him, and maybe it's because he's so close, but Caleb is finally able to catch the words he murmurs into Jester's hair.

"He loved you. And we're gonna get him back."

4

It takes dying for Caleb to admit certain things to himself.

He's pretty sure it's supposed to be the other way around — aren't these kinds of realizations supposed to happen when you lose someone, when  _ you're  _ the person who survives, who has to keep going? But it can't be denied that there is a certain symmetry to this, to the way everything seems to be backwards in the same way. Caleb is becoming more and more  _ here,  _ when he should be dissipating into the aether. His body is destroyed, he didn't even leave a corpse behind, and yet he can feel himself walking, moving, breathing. He can hear everything, but he can't speak. He can see everything, but no one can see him.

He's in love with Jester, and apparently he is the last person to have figured that out.

This must be why he can't leave, he thinks, why somehow he can only seem to move twenty feet or so away from her in any direction, why every time she walks out of a room he finds himself dragged irresistibly after her. It's as if he's floating in the sea and Jester has tied a rope around his neck, and she's pulling him towards her through the waves.

She has no idea, of course. Caleb has tried to make himself known to her — if he is bound to her, if this long-buried, inadmissible, obvious truth is really the thing keeping him here, then surely that must be the answer, mustn't it? A ghost in love, trapped on this side of the afterlife by words unspoken — it's nothing original, Caleb knows how these stories go. He has to find a way to speak to her, to make Jester hear him, and when he's told her what he should have told her a long time ago, he'll find himself free, able to seek rest, to seek peace.

This is how it's supposed to work, anyway. But it's been a week now, a week of Caleb shouting with all his strength, whispering in Jester's ear a hundred times, trying to take her hand, to touch her face, to shove her, to trip her, anything to get her attention — trying to pick up a pencil and write in her sketchbook, trying to nudge the objects on her desk, to make  _ anything  _ happen outside of himself — it's been a week of this, and Jester hasn't so much as blinked.

Caleb wonders if he's losing his mind. It wasn't torture before this. Fear, certainly, and confusion, and boredom, and a deep grief buried beneath his sternum, but it wasn't  _ unbearable.  _

It's unbearable now. It is agony now. Part of it must be the passage of time, the slow crawl of hours into days, the relentless inability to do anything but watch and listen and wait, growing worse and worse the longer it lasts. But it's more than that. It's the burning inside of him, the  _ want,  _ the raw and painful longing that sears through him every time he looks at her, every time she looks through him.

_ He loved you,  _ said Fjord, and it was like a kick in the throat — Caleb had found himself paralyzed, a dozen responses choked silent inside his lungs and mouth that Fjord would never be able to hear anyway, that Jester would never hear.  _ He loved you.  _

Caleb is dead and alone, so why not? Why not use the word  _ love?  _ It doesn't matter what he calls it. It has been twisting and tightening and heating up, like a steel cable lit by a flame, white-hot and glowing, wrapping itself inexorably around Caleb's heart for the past year. For twelve months. He has ignored it, he has dismissed it, but it has only squeezed harder, constricting his soul, digging in, leaving marks that will never leave. 

_ He loved you.  _ Jester had broken down, sobbing quietly into Fjord's chest while he held her, and for the first time Caleb had wondered whether or not the other end of that bright, blazing wire might be wrapped around her heart too.

If he could touch anything, if he could manifest just one hand in the physical world, just enough to grip a pencil, he would write in Jester's journal...he would write…

There's no point imagining what he would write. He doesn't get to write anything. He doesn't get to brush Jester's hand with his fingers, he doesn't get to kiss her, he doesn't get to find out how she tastes or how she feels in his arms with her face nestled in the crook of his neck, giggling against his skin when he complains that the tip of her horn is poking his cheek. He gets none of that.

Caleb gets hours, and silence, and cold.

5

The cold set in around day five or six. Before that, he had no sense of temperature at all, but as sight and hearing and sensation have returned, so too has the bite of the grave, bitter like a winter wind. It's another one of those things that doesn't make sense, and Caleb wearily adds it to his list.

_ My soul is lingering,  _ he repeats every day or so.  _ My senses are returning. I can feel objects, but not interact with them. I am freezing cold. I cannot leave Jester. My journal was not destroyed. _

This last one is what continues to trip him up as he sits in the darkness of Jester's room every night, searching his mind and memory for explanations, for answers, for some scrap of helpful information about ghosts or death or the afterlife. He was never a great student of religion. If he could talk to Jester or Caduceus — well, he wouldn't be in this predicament if he could do that. All he has is himself.

And this is far beyond his experience. 

The disintegration spell, though — that's closer to home. That's magic, pure and simple. More than that, it's a spell that he has studied before. He can't cast it himself, but he knows what it does, and he knows that after it has reduced a body to dust, there is nothing left.  _ Nothing.  _ All that remains, all that  _ can  _ remain, are whatever magical items the victim might have possessed. Items like an enchanted amulet, or a spellbook.

Not an ordinary journal. 

The only explanation, therefore, is that Caleb's journal is not as ordinary as he thinks. And this is...troubling.

It has been two weeks, and he is curled up on the floor at the foot of Jester's bed, thinking. They are in Zadash now. It's midnight, and there's a full moon, and Caleb cannot sleep — does not get to sleep — so he watches the moonlight shimmering through the window.

It's beautiful. There are some small mercies, even when you're dead.

Caleb shivers. The cold has been getting worse. He is numb with it, aching, and nothing alleviates it, not rubbing his arms or running in place or breathing on his hands. If he's got enough of a body to feel cold, shouldn't he be able to work up a sweat? Generate some friction?

Jester would waggle her eyebrows at that. A silent chuckle escapes Caleb's lips.

She is still sleeping — he checked on her a moment ago. The nightmares seem to be absent tonight. He's grateful. Having to stand there as she tosses and turns, moaning with fear, crying out his name, with no way to wake her...it's enough to make him wish he'd never gotten his sight or hearing back at all. On those nights, he has to stand in a corner, facing the wall, and force himself to breathe deep and count to himself in Zemnian.

It's something he learned long ago. Something that has helped him to go away, to disappear. To escape.

He never thought he'd be using it to escape from Jester. The world hasn't turned backwards so much as upside-down.

Tonight, however, everything is quiet. Caleb hugs his arms around himself out of instinct more than anything, though it does nothing to warm him up, and he  _ thinks. _

The journal has been in Jester's bag this whole time. He caught a glimpse of it just once, on that first day, as they were gathering his few remaining possessions and collecting the fine grey dust that had once been his body. It looked like it always had: a simple, somewhat battered leather cover, tied shut with a cord. Nothing odd about it. No signs of being tampered with, magically or otherwise.

A few moments later it had been in Jester's haversack, and she hasn't taken it out since. Caleb is  _ itching  _ to get his hands on it. The answer must lie in there, he is  _ sure,  _ because it can't be anywhere else. He has abandoned the theory that his love for Jester, unconfessed and unconsummated as it is, can possibly be what is keeping him here. A romantic idea, of course, but ridiculous. Plenty of people die with words unsaid, leaving goodbyes and promises and declarations left behind in their wake. Plenty of people never get the chance to tell the ones they love how they truly feel — or they never take the chances they are offered. The world is not filled with the ghosts of these people. Heaven and hell would be empty.

But Caleb's journal in Jester's bag, carried with her everywhere, inexplicably indestructible, a secret locked in its faded pages?

That could do it.

6

He doesn't get the chance to find out.

Caduceus walks into the room with a bag of diamonds, the last few that they needed, and Jester's face lights up. It's the first time Caleb has seen her smile since he died.

He wishes he could smile too — but there is a chill settling in his heart, entirely separate from the all-encompassing cold that surrounds him these days. Diamonds mean that the spell is ready. Diamonds mean resurrection.

Something in the recesses of Caleb's mind tells him that this is wrong.

But there's nothing he can do about it. All he can do is stand there and watch as the Mighty Nein gather in Jester's room, their collective anxiety almost palpable. Beauregard is a mess of nerves, jumping at anything, the most hair-trigger mood Caleb has ever seen her in. Fjord is stony-silent, though he can't seem to sit still either, pacing as he waits for Caduceus to finish drawing the necessary spell circle on the floor. Yasha is knelt in a corner, praying or meditating, one hand on the pommel of her greatsword. And Nott has been drinking — Caleb can smell it on her breath, the sour tang of her favorite whiskey, and that's when he realizes that he can smell again. 

It's like he's slowly coming back to life. It should feel  _ good.  _ He should be filled with hope.

Why isn't he?

Jester is on her knees in the center of the circle, dumping bag after bag of diamonds onto the floor in a pile. With every  _ clunk  _ of gemstone against wood, Caleb's pulse leaps. This is  _ wrong,  _ this is too much, this is  _ dangerous.  _

"Now the holy water," says Caduceus, and Caleb can't  _ breathe. _

He crouches down in front of Jester, so close that he can stare into her eyes from inches away, and as she uncorks her vial of holy water and pours it over the pile of diamonds, Caleb screams into her face,  _ "Jester, STOP!" _

She taps the bottom of the vial to get the last few drops out. "It's all yours, Caduceus."

"Jester." Caleb stands along with her, reaches for her even though he knows it's useless. "Listen to me. You have to hear me. You have to stop this."

Nott is taking Jester's hand, and she leads her out of the circle. Caleb follows, feeling sick, like he's going to throw up, like he's  _ real,  _ like he's not on the verge of being ripped in two.

"Please," he whispers. He lowers himself down beside Jester as she sits on the bed. Caduceus is wrapping up the finishing touches on his spell before the ritual begins, and there isn't  _ time,  _ thinks Caleb wildly. "Please." His lips are nearly touching Jester's ear. "Please, Jester, please,  _ liebling,  _ hear me. This has to stop. I can't explain it, but you cannot do this. You must wait a little longer, you  _ must,  _ Jester, if you love me even a little bit you  _ cannot  _ do this…"

"Do you still have the journal?" asks Nott, and Jester nods, pulling it out of her haversack. 

Caleb is struck by a swell of dizziness. He grips the edge of the mattress with both hands, fingers digging into the sheets. "Please," he manages to get out. "Just let me see it. Let me try to figure it out. There is still time, Jester, just give me a few more minutes, just open the book…"

Jester hands the journal to Nott, and she takes it carefully in her tiny hands, and there are still scars on her fingers from two weeks ago when she clawed at the ground through Caleb's ashes. 

He slides off of the bed, onto his knees on the floor, as she starts walking away. "Nott," he begs. "I am reaching for you now. I need you now more than ever."

But Nott is deaf to his cries. She stands on the outside of the circle, clutching the journal to her chest, and above her Caduceus lifts his outstretched palms in benediction, and in a low voice he begins intoning a prayer to the Wildmother, and Caleb knows that his time is up.

He's too late.

Everything is in slow motion again, like it was in the moment that the lich queen cast the spell that killed him, like that fever dream of dunamis, thick and heavy and unstoppable. Caduceus prays, and Caleb can't stop it. Beauregard unties the sash of the Cobalt Soul from around her waist and places it atop one of the three large runes etched into the floor, and Caleb can't stop it. Nott places his journal on a second rune, and Caleb can't stop it.

Jester places her silver holy symbol, the arched doorway of the Traveler, on the third rune, and steps away. And Caleb can't stop her.

There are some words said, and he should be listening, he really should, he should pay attention to the last things he might ever hear his friends say to him, but there's a roaring in his ears and he can't think. The floor is hard beneath his feet. His lips are tingling, his hands are tingling, there are pins and needles across his whole body, and in one sudden desperate instant he lunges forward and  _ claps  _ his hand onto Jester's shoulder just as Caduceus finishes casting the spell.

Caleb's entire body bursts apart at the seams.

The rest is darkness.

_ to be continued _


	2. Chapter 2

7

"I did try, you know."

With a groan, Caleb sits up.

He can't see anything. It's pitch black wherever he is, but the cold is gone. Everything is pleasantly warm, as a matter of fact, like...like floating in the sea off the coast of Nicodranas, with nothing but blue sky above him.

The voice that he just heard speaks again, very close to his ear, almost like it's inside of him. "Never let it be said that I didn't try. I did my best. But I'm only a demigod, after all. And she stopped listening to me weeks ago."

Caleb flinches away from the voice. It's like velvet, like moss wet with rain, soft and slimy.

There's a dark chuckle, rippling around him in all directions, and Caleb scrambles backwards, his hands sinking back into whatever surface is supporting him. "Don't be afraid. I can't hurt you here."

"What a relief," Caleb replies acidly.

Something is fading into view before his eyes, something in the shape of a hood, green and shadowed, and the bright eyes just visible beneath it are crinkled at the corners with a smile. "I'm not the one you should aim your venom at, Caleb Widogast. You ought to be thanking me."

"Thank you," he spits.

The Traveler looms over him. He's stranger than Caleb always imagined, less comforting and more eerie, but perhaps to Jester he appears differently. He wonders which version is closer to the truth.  _ If there can be any truth,  _ he thinks,  _ when it comes to the gods.  _

Caleb does not feel particularly inclined towards any of the gods at the moment, if he's being honest.

A long, pale, green-nailed finger reaches out from the Traveler's vast cloak and pokes Caleb in the chest. "Do you know how much work it takes to bring someone back from the dead? Even a skinny little human? I can't just snap my pretty fingers like your Everlight or your Wildmother. It takes  _ time.  _ Bodies are complicated things, especially starting from scratch."

"I don't believe you," mutters Caleb, but his breath is heaving in his chest and there's a buzzing sensation in his throat and head that he has felt many times before. "I don't believe you. You had nothing to do with this. You are lying."

The hands, two of them now, all with green-tipped nails, stretch wide. "Why would I lie?"

"Because you are a god of trickery. Because it makes no sense."

"And why exactly doesn't it make sense?" rumbles the voice, like an earthquake under a pond.

Caleb swallows, trying to catch his breath. "Because — " He swallows again. "Because this is not your domain. Because you would have told Jester what you were doing instead of standing back and letting all of them do what they just did. Because — because it was my journal keeping me trapped there, not  _ you." _

This time when the Traveler laughs, it echoes wildly through the darkness. 

_ He's mad,  _ thinks Caleb,  _ he's actually mad, she's serving a mad god, and she doesn't even know. _

"You  _ are  _ clever," grins the voice, and those will-o'-the-wisp eyes  _ dance.  _ "She always told me you were clever. You've worked a few things out, or you think you have, and I'll admit, you aren't too far off. I do wish you had let that clever mind of yours shut up for a while, though — you might have heard some good advice."

"Fuck you," Caleb growls. He struggles to his knees, then to his feet, and he's surprised to find that the ground that before felt muddy and unstable has turned solid. It takes no more than a few seconds to find his balance. "Fuck you and your fucking riddles. I have had  _ nothing to do,  _ for  _ weeks,  _ except to sit and  _ fucking think.  _ And I am supposed to thank you for this?"

"Sit down," says the voice as cold as ice.

Caleb doesn't move. His breath has turned to fog in the air.

"She told me about this, too." The Traveler's words snake around him like feathers, tickling and prying, making him want to rip off his skin and throw it away. "Stubborn, she said, and so brave, though you won't admit it even to yourself. It's easier to believe you're a coward, isn't it, that you're weak both inside and out. But that's never been true, has it? Look at you now. A god commands you to sit, and here you are, standing tall."

"Demigod," hisses Caleb.

With a rush of frigid air, the shadowed face swoops close, until they are nose to nose, Caleb and the Traveler. The eyes like bog fires are so bright that Caleb can't keep his own eyes open, but more powerful and more unexpected is the  _ smell,  _ a potpourri of mint and lavender and seaweed and brine, of leaves decaying under snow, of mown grass and summer swamp and cinnamon. It assaults Caleb like a heady perfume, and he reels back.

"You are lucky to have her," murmurs the Traveler, all silk and twilight. "You are lucky that I shared her with you all."

Caleb opens his eyes, though he has to hold a hand up in front of his face against the glare. "You do not own her."

"No. If I did, I would never have let her give you her heart. I would certainly not have allowed her to shut me out after your...untimely death. I would have broken her doors down and claimed her again — but as you say, I have never  _ owned  _ her." The eyes gleam. "She is her own person, with all the curious contradictions and incongruities that come with personhood — including falling in love."

"She is not in love with me — " begins Caleb breathlessly, but the Traveler cuts him off.

"It was not so long ago that she prayed to me about you, that she begged me,  _ demanded  _ me to look out for you." The darkness flutters around Caleb like a cloak tossed in the wind. "You'd nearly gotten yourself killed again, and she was getting sick of it, sick of the worry, sick of the pain every time someone cut you down in battle, sick of never knowing if she could get to you in time to lift you up again — so she came to me. She comes to  _ me,  _ and I give her  _ whatever she needs,  _ because she is my  _ cleric." _

"I know," whispers Caleb.

"Do you?" The Traveler steps closer. "Do you know? Do you know what I would do for her?"

He throws back his hood.

Caleb stares. Whatever he expected, it wasn't this. Something creepier, more sinister, if he'd had to guess — something to match those eerie eyes, something sickly and green, something emaciated and scaled, something that could crawl out of a swamp and wrap itself around the bedpost of a lonely little girl and whisper into her ear.

Instead he sees a mane of red hair framing a youthful, fey face, and a pair of ordinary green eyes shining with unshed tears.

"There's no harm letting you see my true face," says the Traveler softly. "You're never going to be able to tell anyone, not now. Even if you did, what does it matter? My path is coming to its end. I'll never ascend now."

"Explain," says Caleb hoarsely.

"I gave that up." The Traveler's smile has turned bitter. "You know better than to spout all that nonsense about what works or doesn't work, what's possible or impossible, what  _ makes sense.  _ Stop and think who you're talking to. I  _ exist  _ to break rules. I find the loopholes reality didn't know it had. Do you really imagine I wasn't on the job the  _ moment  _ that lich disintegrated your body?"

Caleb has no response. There is a silent, white-hot fury building up within him, and he couldn't speak if he wanted to.

"I really gave it my all. My  _ all.  _ Do you understand? Every scrap of power in me that  _ she  _ wasn't already using. Every puzzle piece of divine potential I could cobble together. And that's it." The Traveler barks out a laugh. "I'm finished. Oh, I'm still sitting pretty on my little domain, I can still do my old tricks. But true godhood is out of my reach now, I'm afraid."

"That is a shame," murmurs Caleb. "I am so sorry for you."

The youthful face breaks into a wide grin. "Oh, she told me about this too. Your anger. Terrifying to behold, she said."

"Did she now."

"I'm afraid I'm not impressed." He reaches out and pokes Caleb's chest again. "I've been around the world a few times, and you would not  _ believe  _ what I have seen."

Caleb takes the Traveler's finger and moves it away from his chest. "I have some questions," he says, as steadily as he can, "and I am going to need you to answer them."

The Traveler spreads his arms wide. "Ask away."

It's all he can do not to lunge forward and deck that smug face. "Tell me why the ritual failed."

"Ah, that's difficult." The Traveler runs a hand through that wild mess of red hair. "You were  _ so close,  _ do you know that? I was really hurrying things up at the end, since it was obvious that you were both ignoring me — "

"We were not ignoring you!" Caleb shouts. "I was not ignoring you! You never spoke to me!"

"You heard me loud and clear," the Traveler sighs. "You knew that something very, very stupid was about to happen, even if you didn't know why. And if   _ she  _ hadn't been so furious with me — "

"Call her by her name. Call her Jester."

The smile returns. "If  _ Jester  _ hadn't been so furious with me, she would have been listening too. But she shut that door the day you died. How does it feel to know you cost her her faith?"

_ "Fick dich,"  _ whispers Caleb, but his voice is trembling.

"That's good to know," comes the smooth reply. "But it's her own fault, though I wish I could have warned her. Resurrection spells are...fiddly things. I thought I would have more time, to be entirely honest. They should never have been able to get all those diamonds as quickly as they did. Your life is  _ expensive,  _ did you know that, Caleb?"

"Get to the  _ gotverdammt  _ point."

"That  _ is  _ the point." His voice is like a knife. "Lives are expensive. There's no way to cheat the price — it comes out of the account one way or another. And more often than not — and believe me, like I told you, I have been around the world a few times — more often than not, the kind of spells your little family was attempting to cast  _ fail. _ The soul isn't willing, or the ritual is conducted wrong, or the tie that binds just isn't quite strong enough. And then what do you have?"

He holds out a hand and gestures to the ground in front of him.

"A circle on the ground, and a waste of good diamonds."

"Are — " Caleb grits his teeth. "Are you actually — are you actually telling me that you tried to bring me back  _ yourself  _ because you thought a resurrection spell was  _ too risky?" _

The Traveler shrugs.

"You are the  _ god of risks!" _

_ "Demigod  _ of risks." This time the grin bares a set of gleaming white teeth, just sharp enough not to be human. "And really, are  _ you  _ telling me that you would take a risk with the heart of Jester Lavorre? I had everything planned out. It was going to be  _ perfect.  _ Don't blame me for your friends' mistakes."

Caleb's face is blazing hot. "They did nothing wrong. They did  _ exactly  _ as they ought to have done. We are not here because they made any mistakes, we are here because you are an arrogant fuck."

"I can't claim not to be guilty as charged," laughs the Traveler, and Caleb can feel it under his skin,  _ itching, crawling.  _ "Can you? After all, you are here because you took it upon yourself to charge in front of that disintegration spell in the first place."

"I am here," retorts Caleb, "because you interfered where you were not needed and neglected to tell your only cleric."

"She neglected to listen." The grin widens and somehow ceases to be a smile at the same time. "She should have had more faith."

"You should have had more faith in Jester Lavorre."

For a split second, it looks like the Traveler is going to leap forward and...bite him, thinks Caleb — but the moment passes, and that easy caprice returns to the demigod's smile. "Well, I certainly underestimated her, I'll give you that. Two weeks to pull together a true resurrection spell? Even with another cleric to help, that's a tall order. I'm impressed, I'm blown away. Or I would be if it had actually worked."

"You have still not told me why it didn't."

"Oh…" The Traveler waves a hand vaguely. "Wires crossed, that sort of thing. You were somewhere between dead and alive, not really here and not really there. The spell got confused. In her defense, the Wildmother isn't really used to complications — things are usually much more cut and dry for her."

Caleb draws in a shaky breath. "The spell got confused."

"Essentially."

_ "That's not fucking good enough!"  _ he shouts, and from his suddenly outstretched hands a wall of fire roars outward, incinerating the darkness, sending a wave of heat that rushes through Caleb's hair like a wind, and it should be licking up the Traveler's cloak and lighting up that red mane, crackling into his skin, burning out that hideous mouth, melting those flashing green eyes into ichor — 

— but the Traveler is gone.

"Seriously?" comes a dry voice behind Caleb.

He whirls around. The fire, the work of an instant, smolders out almost at once.

Unscathed, the Traveler sighs. "You can cast magic here and you don't think I can too?"

"I don't care." Caleb is quaking with anger. "I don't accept this. You owe me better."

"I owe you  _ nothing!"  _ snarls the Traveler. "There is one person in all of the planes to whom I am beholden, and I have just given her  _ everything.  _ I will continue to give her everything. I will hunt down the Raven Queen myself if that is what it takes, because Jester Lavorre  _ wants you back,  _ but do not think for one moment that I bear any affection or loyalty towards you, Bren Aldric Ermendrud."

Caleb sucks in his breath. "I have never made that mistake," he tells him truthfully, letting his old name pass unacknowledged. "I have never trusted you."

"It's mutual, believe me." The lips curl into a sneer. "You have never been good enough for her."

"At least we agree on something."

With a flourish, the Traveler pulls his hood up, and once more the face disappears into shadow, leaving only the green pinpricks of his eyes piercing through the darkness. "That's a good note to leave on, I think. Friendly accord. You'll be safe here for a while, have no fear. Just be patient."

"Be — " Caleb darts forward. "No, we are not done. You haven't told me anything."

"Work it out," smiles the Traveler, taking step after step backwards, just out of Caleb's reach.

"I have nothing to go on! Where am I? Where is Jester? What happened?"

The Traveler says nothing. Just smiles. Step after step.

"What was in the journal?" asks Caleb desperately.

But there's no one there. He is alone.

Caleb's voice fails him, and he crumples to the ground, except that there isn't any ground to hit — there is nothing but darkness, nothing but silence, nothing but waves.

_ to be continued _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for emetophobia and blood. Lots of blood. So much blood.

8

Death — true death — lasts for an eternity.

It also lasts for no time at all.

Caleb is adrift in ink and salt, and his mind rolls in lazy circles, the same thoughts and memories coming round and round again, the same sights and sounds, the same words. A valley full of flowers. _You've been accepted._ The twelve gleaming sides of a beacon held aloft in his trembling hand. How heavy a purse of gold feels. _I have only just met you._ Seaweed wrapped around his legs and ankles in clinging fronds. The voice of the Ruby raised in an aria. _I am glad you see good in me._ Why would they do this to him, why would they betray the country they have raised him to serve? _You don't get to choose who cares about you, Caleb._ Blood spattered on the silk of a circus tent. Blood seeping into his shoes in the streets of Rexxentrum. Blood stark against the blue of Jester's skin as she wields her handaxe. Blood on Nott's fingers as she digs in the dirt. And the smell of blood, all around him, slick and sickly and fragrant and thicker than water —

He is floating in blood. He is drowning.

 _Child,_ says a very cold, soft voice, not so much in his ear as in the very center of his chest. _You should not be here._

He claws at the world around him, kicking, his hair swirling in a wet cloud around his face, but there is no up or down, and there is nothing to see — he is blind. He is choking. Hot, heavy blood forces its way into his mouth and throat, gagging him, pouring into his lungs.

 _So much fight in you,_ sighs the voice. Sadness — grief, even — layers every syllable like a frost. _There could be peace here for you, if you desired it — or once there could have been. But mistakes have been made. Some things may now be out of reach. Even my reach. And my arms are very long._

Caleb gasps, and there is nothing but blood.

He is standing in a circular chamber. All around him are onyx walls, obsidian floors, ceilings of polished jet — every time he looks in a different direction, it's as if the room tilts and he is seeing it for the first time, as if he is inside of a dodecahedron and it won't stop tumbling. The effect should be dizzying, but a still, steady mote of calm is anchored just behind his breastbone, holding him in place.

Before him stands a black throne on a dais, or maybe it is an altar. It might be a footstool. Somehow it shifts and swims as he stares at it, always two or three things at once. A mountain. A twelve-sided pool. A bench of smoke-grey crystal. A bed.

The only constant in Caleb's vision is the man sitting on the steps of the dais.

Even he is difficult to make out clearly, but only because of the dim light. He is dressed in black armor and wears his dark hair long, but his pale face stands out in the darkness. He looks sad.

"What — " Caleb tries to say, but as soon as he opens his mouth, a torrent of blood gushes out.

The man on the dais holds up a gloved hand. "I don't think you can speak here. Sorry. Things are...a little off."

 _You're fucking telling me,_ thinks Caleb desperately.

Maybe it shows in his expression, because the stranger has the tiniest smile as he stands up. Something rustles like a deer running through underbrush. "She can't speak to you properly either," he says, descending the steps of the dais, youth and old age married in the graceful swing of his limbs. "Believe me, this isn't the way it's usually done, but your...friend, he really fucked everything up."

Caleb does his best to communicate, without speech, exactly what he thinks of the word _friend._

"No, I know, trust me." The smile on the stranger's face falters a little. "I knew him once, too. Long, long time ago, before all of this...godhood shit. He was just as much of a dick back then, and just as obsessed with death. Well." One corner of his mouth crooks upward again. "Obsessed is a strong word. Curious, maybe."

Blood heaves from Caleb's mouth as he tries to force out words, a question, anything — he coughs, and a gout of it flies to hit the stranger in the center of his chest.

"No, really, don't try to talk. It won't work."

 _What the fuck am I supposed to do, then?_ Caleb glares, wiping his nose and mouth with a shaking hand and swallowing. He is on the verge of being sick, if he's even able to be sick here in…

"It doesn't have a name," says the stranger. "This place."

Caleb stares.

"I'm not reading your mind. I know you wouldn't like that." How is it that he is walking steadily towards him but somehow not moving any closer? "But whatever you're feeling, it's...amplified here, like an echo chamber. Those of us who have been here for a while can pick certain things up. It's why she sent me. I'm to answer your questions, as best as I can." He gives Caleb an apologetic shrug. "Beggars and choosers. You may as well sit down."

There is a stone chair behind Caleb. He lowers himself into it, and although moments ago his entire body was drenched in blood, he finds himself suddenly dressed in clean, dry clothes of dark grey linen.

The armor-clad man is sitting across from him, mere feet away. "My matron is chatting with this Traveler of yours. She's not happy, I can tell you that much. I know, I know, he's not _your_ Traveler, you don't have to hit me over the head with it, you're not fond of him right now. I can't blame you. He's put you in a really fucking bad position here."

He holds up one hand, and something small and polished gleams into existence between his fingers.

"You know what a lodestone is?"

Caleb nods curtly.

His companion snaps the fingers of his other hand, and a second lodestone appears. "One end attracts, one end deflects. Point them the right way, and they call to one another. Even to a piece of ordinary iron. That's all a resurrection spell is, really — a call to the iron in someone's soul, to that piece of them that isn't ready to give up."

 _There are worse things you can do with a lodestone,_ thinks Caleb, remembering the bone-white of the lich queen's grip around that chunk of stone, mottled with grave dust.

"Did you know that you can magnetize ordinary iron as well?"

Again, Caleb nods. He has spent enough time with Nott, watching her fiddle with glass and metal and gunpowder, to have developed a passing familiarity with these things. Some of his spell components, too, require a little chemistry to put together. Once he might have considered it crude work compared to the elegance of arcane magic, but anyone who has witnessed Nott in action would have to admit that science and alchemy have their uses. He has even let her teach him a few new tricks, just to see the excitement in her eyes.

His heart aches. He wishes he had let her teach him so much more.

"Think of the soul in the same way," says Caleb's companion softly. "Think of it exposed to this kind of magic, over a period of hours, days, much longer than it is ever meant to last. Think of a resurrection spell stretched over _weeks._ Not a strong spell, because this god isn't strong, is he — he's sacrificing his own divinity, or at least its potential, just to fuel what he's attempting. It would almost be noble of him if it weren't so reckless. But even weak magic, with a long enough exposure, can start to turn a little piece of iron into something else."

He holds up both lodestones, one in each hand. They glitter in the darkness like a pair of black eyes.

"And then at the worst possible moment, you hit that soul with a true resurrection spell."

His hands move together, and the lodestones fly apart out of his grip, propelled by their own opposing fields and clattering useless to the floor.

"That's what he just did to you." The stranger's gaze is cold and piercing. "He turned you into a fucking lodestone, and your own friends flung you out into the darkness. And even the Raven Queen doesn't know how to bring you back."

Caleb can't move. All the gravity in the room feels centered on him, bearing down on him with the weight of a mountain or an iron stone, pushing him into his chair so hard he can barely breathe. His thoughts flash to Jester's smile, to her holy symbol, to Caduceus's crystal-topped staff, to the leather journal resting tantalizingly in the middle of a chalk-etched rune.

"I'm sorry, but they've already tried that," murmurs the stranger. "It's a hard truth to swallow, I know. But you made your choice when you stepped in front of that disintegration spell. Do you regret what you did?"

Mutely, Caleb shakes his head. He regrets a great deal about his situation right now, but not that. Never that. That was a price gladly paid.

"I didn't either," the stranger says softly. "Gladly paid, indeed. You get lucky, sometimes, and you're given another stab at life, but most of the time…"

He clears his throat, and Caleb is surprised to see a glimmer of what might possibly be tears, though it's too dark in here to be sure.

"When I said that my matron doesn't know how to bring you back, I didn't mean back to life," continues the gentle voice as if nothing were amiss. "That chapter is over. I meant _back here,_ where you ought to be. Because you aren't really here now, Caleb. You've noticed that, I think."

The walls and floor and ceiling and dais all waver, like a strong vibration has passed through them.

"In the moment of transition between life and death, my matron should have taken you by the hand and brought you here herself, and it would have been peaceful, Caleb, truly. I don't expect you to believe that — no one ever does until it actually happens to them. But — " He leans back and runs a gloved hand through his long dark hair, and his next words have a sharpness to them that has been missing for the past few minutes of conversation, like the smooth voice has been filed into a blade's edge. "Fuck, nobody saw the Traveler coming."

It's almost enough to make Caleb laugh. No, nobody ever did, did they.

"I mean — " The stranger stands abruptly and begins to pace in a small circuit. "The undead are one thing, obviously, and there are people who handle that for her — you all just ended a lich, didn't you? She appreciated that. Seriously. But no one's ever — "

He holds his hands up in exasperation, and for the first time he looks almost human.

"Who the fuck gets halfway to godhood and throws it all away for _one person?"_

Pride, grief, and a pulse of love so strong it's almost enough to settle the fluctuating chamber into stillness all burst across Caleb's chest, and he _feels_ rather than thinks, _You wouldn't have to ask that question if you'd met Jester Lavorre._

The stranger's face softens. More than softens — a light that was only hinted at before comes a little stronger into his eyes, and twin tears roll down past the pale cheekbones to tremble at the precipice of his jaw before dropping silently to the ground. "I wish I could give you more time," he murmurs. "Please believe me."

He believes him. It sinks deep into his heart and comes to rest at the bottom, next to the knowledge that he is never going to see Jester again.

"You hate him for what he's done to you," says the stranger, once more stern and cold, and there's that rustle again, like the wind in a million feathers, "but that shouldn't be your concern at the moment. You are between worlds. Not between planes, not between dimensions — between _worlds._ There are no rules for this. There is life, and there is afterlife, and you've fallen down a crack in the middle that isn't supposed to exist. You're like a book trapped behind a shelf, and we can't move the shelf or the wall."

Caleb spits blood. _Tell me about the journal,_ he thinks, or tries to feel, as hard as he can.

The stranger's brow furrows. "I don't know about a journal. That isn't — that's not the point. This is your eternal rest at stake."

 _I always assumed I'd burn in hell,_ Caleb shrugs. _Stuck between worlds doesn't sound so bad._

"You'll unravel. I don't know what's going to happen to you, Caleb. You'll go mad, or you'll cease to exist, or you'll become something else entirely. Souls aren't meant to...to float untethered."

_What does it matter?_

Pity floods the stranger's eyes. "It matters," he says softly. "Trust me."

 _Not if I can't see them again._ Caleb grits his teeth, swallows the blood that rises in his throat. _Not if I can't talk to them again. Not if I can't talk to her._

"You say that now — "

"Of course I fucking say that now!" shouts Caleb.

The next moment he is bent double — the moment after that he is on hands and knees, the onyx floor careening beneath him, as he vomits stomachful after stomachful of blood onto the stone, his spine snapping with convulsions — one hand slips in the mess, and then he's down, falling into an ocean of black blood, a deafening rush of feathers and heartbeats in his ears, and a third sound, a whispered word, so distant and soft that he only just catches it before everything vanishes into shadow.

_Bren._

_to be continued_


End file.
